


A Place For Your Head

by DGCatAniSiri



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: If you two emotionally constipated idiots weren't so oblivious this wouldn't be 'pre', M/M, Not that I'm bitter or anything about the lack of canon ME1 romance between them..., Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 16:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14500569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: Shepard talks with Kaidan about tips for dealing with headaches.





	A Place For Your Head

Shepard massaged his temples as he strode out of the elevator, heading towards his quarters. The general stress headache that came with command was absolutely not helped by all the brain scrambling he’d been through – the prothean beacon, Shiala’s prothean Cipher, Liara’s attempt to help... All of that made it that his head felt more like scrambled eggs than actual functional grey matter. 

Getting tired of the throb that was becoming unfortunately familiar, he started towards the medical bay, hoping Doctor Chakwas had something more effective than ibuprofen. 

As he neared the door, however, Kaidan emerged from the bay, immediately recognizing something being wrong with his commanding officer. “Commander. Something wrong?”

“Headache. Side effect of all this brain scrambling, it’s got a hell of an afterkick.” 

Kaidan offered a small smile. “I know what that’s like. L2 migraines may not be the same as the response to a prothean vision, but...”

It probably wasn’t the same, but Shepard appreciated the comparison all the same – no one else seemed at all concerned about what these repeated intrusions into his mind were doing to him. 

“Got any tips on dealing with them?” 

“Aside from medication, often, it’s just a matter of riding it out.” Kaidan gave him a sympathetic smile. “It’s not exactly a science, but... Distractions also tend to help.” 

A distraction... sounded fairly nice right about now. The hunt for Saren was getting to Shepard, especially when he factored in the stonewalling that the Council had hit them with – the asari councilor had made mention of ‘every effort’ being made to help him track Saren down, yet so far the extent of that ‘effort’ was no more than words. The Council were too busy trying to preserve the image of the Spectres, they seemed ready to let the worst come to pass just to avoid a bad image of the organization.

“Any suggestions?” Shepard asked.

“Conversation’s always a start, anyway,” Kaidan said. “Unless you’ve got other things to focus on...?”

“Just standard paperwork.” The thorian would likely keep Alliance biologists and xeno-botanists busy for years. Probably just the debate about how to classify the damn thing, as a plant or animal or something else, would take that long, let alone anything else involved about it. Shepard expected to be hounded with questions about it for a long time to come. “I get the feeling that trying to focus on that right now is only going to make my headache worse.”

“Usually,” Kaidan said with a grin. 

Since it seemed Kaidan had nothing else demanding his attention, Shepard motioned to his quarters, figuring that they’d probably be better off talking in private than in the middle of Normandy’s mess. “The paperwork can keep. I could use the distraction.” If it would soothe his headache... Hell, if it meant that he didn’t have to worry about filing reports, he’d take it.

They moved into Shepard’s quarters, and, even though Kaidan was there, felt himself relax – this was his space, where he dropped the rank. Inviting Kaidan in here might have brought in some of that sense of the rank – the disconnect between Commander and Lieutenant in the chain of command, or the rules of fraternization – but he felt he could relax with Kaidan. He had this air about him that told Shepard he could set down the rank and actually speak to him. It was a nice feeling to know that he could drop the official rank and all the various professional barriers.

“So, I’m assuming that you’re not looking to talk about the thorian,” Kaidan said as he took a seat.

Shepard grimaced – again, the thorian itself seemed to be a source of paperwork all on its own. Wasn’t this supposed to be about getting away from the sources of Shepard’s headaches? “I could certainly do with a different topic,” he said. 

With a nod, Kaidan started considering the other possible topics – small talk was significantly harder when serving on a starship, since you couldn’t even bring up the weather. A thought occurred to Kaidan, though it could tie back to the whole element of Shepard’s headaches. “Stop me if this is going in the wrong direction, but I’m a little curious about the protheans and this vision that you’ve had. If it’s part of the problem, your headaches, I’m sure there’s some other thing we could talk about...”

For a moment, Shepard didn’t answer, and Kaidan was almost positive that he’d hit on something that was absolutely going to make the headaches worse. Then, Shepard let out a deep, heavy sigh. 

“If it were anyone else, I think I’d be angry about that question.” He shook his head. “The protheans, the beacon, the Reapers... Everyone’s been so concerned about what it all means... It’s almost easy for me to forget as much as anyone else that all of this is... scrambling my brain.” Shepard hesitated another moment, and then felt a mental push – he’d hit a limit, and he needed to say this now. “Liara wants to ‘help me understand’ the vision, and she thinks that linking minds will do that, without even thinking that having my brain further scrambled just makes this worse. I get this vision shoved into my brain, everyone thinks it’s okay to shove more things in there, poke around for themselves. And what exactly do I say to that? Because this vision is the key to stopping Saren, saving humanity. So I put up with it, but... I’ve had my brain scrambled repeatedly over the last couple of weeks, and it’s like... I’m being told to just put up with it, that it’s acceptable, that I shouldn’t have a problem with it, that because it’s for a good cause, that makes the fact that it just keeps HAPPENING, I should go along with it!” His voice picked up volume as he finished, and he threw a useless punch against the wall, causing Kaidan to reflexively flinch at the loud SMACK! 

Seeing Kaidan’s reaction, Shepard realized that he’d been bottling things up for far too long. “I... I’m sorry, Kaidan.” He shook his hand, and a part of his brain acknowledged that hitting the wall was a good way to break some bones, and slapping medigel on broken bones, while it would work, was still something that would result in a lecture from Doctor Chakwas, which was not something Shepard looked forward to.

“Don’t apologize, Shepard. It... sounds like this is something you’ve been holding in for a while now. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, dealing with all this.” That was one of the things that Shepard admired about Kaidan, how much of a steadying voice he could offer. He saw past the emotional reaction, got to the underlying issues. “It’s... over my head, definitely.”

Shepard sighed, slumping on the bed. “I just... It was bad enough that the prothean beacon shoved that message into my brain. The fact that Shiala and Liara want to do the same...”

“And, given everything else happening, it’s not like you can really say no, but at the same time...” Kaidan shook his head. “It’s a rock and hard place, isn’t it?”

“No kidding.” Shepard shook his head. “I just keep thinking... Why doesn’t anyone think that my problem with the vision isn’t that it’s not making sense but that it’s there in the first place? My brain isn’t some... filing cabinet that people can stuff things in and look through whenever they want.” 

Kaidan nodded. “It probably doesn’t help that Shiala and Liara are asari. From what I understand, they do that... brain melding thing as a way to bond with friends and family. To them, it’s not any kind of big deal, even though it’s something only the asari can do. I guess they just don’t think about how us non-asari feel about it.”

That got him a scoff. “And here I thought the asari were such renowned diplomats that they’d be able to recognize when they were making people uncomfortable.”

“Just because that’s their reputation, it doesn’t make it true. The other races think of us humans as bullies, without thinking about how humanity entered the galactic stage. We didn’t know about the Citadel’s rules, and the turians attacked us for not following them anyway. Not that humanity is any better on the anthropocentrism, but...” Kaidan shook his head. “We all keep judging everyone, no matter their species, on the standards of our own.”

And somehow, the conversation had grown beyond them. This didn’t exactly do much to relieve Shepard’s headache – galactic scale issues were always a source of making the throbbing on the side of his head increase.

He shook his head. “This is getting us right back into headache territory. I thought you were trying to distract me.”

“Sorry, Commander. I suppose it’s not an easy subject to stay off of,” Kaidan said, offering a smile for Shepard’s efforts.

Shepard shook his head. “I suppose not.” He sighed again. “I can’t seem to avoid this. It’s bad enough that it’s part of my work hours, this crap follows me into my off hours...”

Kaidan couldn’t help it – he chuckled at that. At Shepard’s offended look, he quickly made an attempt at placating him. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just... Scuttlebutt’s been talking about you and Liara lately. Given what you’re saying about the beacon’s message, it sounds like the watercooler talk is way off.”

Shepard scowled, though he understood that the gossip was pretty much a part of life on a ship. They were a small, insular community, the conversations were bound to turn to the question of romantic life, and, given that he was not just the captain of the ship, Shepard was also the first human Spectre. Even if the Normandy crew weren’t talking about it, their friends and families – and the random people they met on the Citadel, both people who worked and lived there and the crews of visiting ships – were going to ask questions. No, it certainly wasn’t surprising.

“Very off, Lieutenant. Scuttlebutt gossip isn’t worth the paper it’s not printed on.” He shook his head. “Even if the fact that I feel more like a specimen in a jar she wants to study when the beacon comes up in conversation weren’t part of this, given everything trying to play around with my brain, I can pretty solidly say that someone who considers joining minds the height of intimacy is absolutely not a goal.” The fact that they were using the meld to understand the vision, meaning Liara was getting more intimate with him than most third dates was something that Shepard was desperately trying to avoid thinking about. “I can’t take being violated like that and calling it intimacy.”

That got Kaidan’s attention. “Violation?” That was a very particular word choice, with a lot of meaning to it. A lot of people might have said it with some judgment over using that particular word, considering that Shepard had agreed to join minds with Shiala and Liara both, as a way of understanding the beacon’s message. But Kaidan’s voice was free of that entirely, offering no question of his choice of description, just bringing it to Shepard’s mind that he’d used that particular word.

The recognition of that seemed to almost surprise Shepard – he hadn’t realized his own opposition to the melding process had reached that point. “I... I guess I do feel like it’s a violation. I’m not... We’ve seen things, Kaidan. Side effect of our service... There’s a lot of crap we’ve seen and been through that we don’t talk about.” Kaidan nodded, understanding. “I don’t know if Shiala or Liara saw it, but... For me, those memories got kicked up. I’ve dealt with a lot of my traumas, but... They may have been trying to just get to the beacon’s message, but I didn’t experience just that. It... felt like someone rummaging around in my head, looking through everything in there that might lead to the beacon’s message.”

Kaidan understood what Shepard meant. Everyone carried trauma with them. People dealt with it in varying ways over the years, to varying degrees. But having it dragged to the surface without warning... There really was no way to make that pleasant. “And I suppose talking to Liara about that is...?”

“I feel like that would only make things worse – I’ll give the scuttlebutt this, they did pick up on Liara having a crush on me.” He understood it, given the circumstances that they’d met under, with Shepard saving her from the geth and the collapsing ruin. Adrenaline forged bonds, and made it easy to feel things were more than they were. But he’d tried to avoid giving Liara the impression that he shared those feelings – sure, she might be older than he was, but the archeologist gave off this impression of being more like a teenager, a kid in over her head. Numeric age aside, she seemed so young, too young for him. 

And then Shepard had a passing thought – he was speaking with Kaidan, alone, in his quarters. Scuttlebutt had turned to the idea of him and Liara because she was outside of the chain of command, but this... Well, this could spark some more rumors.

“Speaking of the scuttlebutt... This is probably going to encourage them, you know. Us talking in here, alone.”

Kaidan took that in, and he ultimately nodded. “I suppose that is a hazard of getting friendly with a superior officer.” He paused. “Still, I suppose for decorum’s sake, that’s probably my cue to head out.” He sounded... regretful of that. Shepard wondered what he should make of that. 

Before Kaidan made it to the door, Shepard stopped him. “Kaidan? Thanks. For the distraction, I mean.” He offered the other man a smile. “It’s nice to be able to talk about this with someone.”

Kaidan offered a nod. “Of course, Commander. Anytime.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was seriously tempted to genuinely just go ahead and have them at the least kiss. But Kaidan and his stupid following the whole chain of command/fraternization rules and regs during the course of ME1 thing...


End file.
